I Can't Help Myself
by skeptic skeleton
Summary: "Please don't tell," he begs, cries flowing. But what kind of superhero would she be if she didn't?/ One-Shot, slight slash.


**I just got so overwhelmed when Mighty Med premiered. It was just so cute and Jake and Bradley are so...ugh, I nearly cried with feels.****  
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**This will be my first slash, so if you were coming, looking for some action, well you came to the wrong place.**

**Hopefully this inspires some people to start some fics for them, because I just fell in love with this show and the characters, and it was just amazingness.**

* * *

Skylar Storm has heard many things about Mighty Med.

They were good, she'll give them that. But being around so many people and commotion just makes her more anxious, especially since every superhero was patched up and ready to go in under a day while she remains practically a normo, bottled up and useless.

Despite this, and her urging hunger for her powers to return, it isn't a horrible place. Sure, Allan is a twerp, and there's a pair of normos running around doing the jobs that superhero doctors are supposed to, but after a week or so, her tolerance grew for these oddities.

Her patience for the anti-dote that would unlock her powers? Not so much.

These thoughts plague Skylar's mind as she wanders through the hospital mindlessly. Throughout the two weeks of her being here, she hadn't seized the opportunity to explore. She hadn't meant to today either, but it struck her how big Mighty Med is.

The normos, Kaz and Oliver she recalls their names being, stumbled in from a janitor's closet. It hadn't struck her how many secret entrances their are because of her being able to use the main one every time.

Skylar gives a soft sigh, idly running her eyes over the plated numbers next to doors as she passes them. It is a hallway for recovering heroes who needed a place to rest over a big surgery, or had been having head troubles. Every few doors the pattern of rooms, occupied or not, is interrupted by a bathroom or supply closet.

Soon the halls comes to an abrupt dead end, ending with a room she can only assume is an unused bathroom, judging from the rusty door hinges and slight grimy coat on the doorknob.

This doesn't hold any topic of interest. Skylar is sure that plenty of the rooms in Mighty Med went unused as renovations are done and rooms are pushed to the side.

But abandoned rooms aren't supposed to have their doors ajar - or dinky light sweeping through into the hallway.

Skylar squints, looking behind her shoulder and back to the door. Should she alert someone?

Then she squares her shoulders. She is Skylar Storm. The stupid mysterious contents of a closed door weren't going to scare her.

She takes slow, quiet steps forward, as to not scare whoever and alert them of her presence. She twists the doorknob, wincing at the slimy feel that chills her even from underneath the thick material of her gloves.

It's quite a sight she sees on the other side - one that, despite her many battles and adventures on various planets - draws a small gasp.

The smaller boy with the soft features and curling hair on the tips of his ears - Oliver, she remembers him being - sits with his left side to her, leaning against a shelf of gloves and scrubs, cradling his left wrist in his hand. Skylar doesn't go unaware of the spreading red stains on his bleak skin.

"Oh," Skylar manages to let out, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Oliver looks up, his wide eyes taking her in with a glassy look to them. He takes notice that her gaze remains on his wrist, and the sharp nub of metal he found after a little rummaging in the supply closet that's tip was darkened with his blood.

"Please don't tell," he begs.

Skylar steps into the room and closes the door with a soft, almost inaudible click, closing them in. Hesitantly she sinks to her knees, looking at him with a tilted head.

Oliver's sleeves sit at his elbows, his face looks paler than usual, and his hold glassy, lost quality to him.

She is at loss of what to do. He is sitting right in front of her, begging her not to spill his secrets, but what kind of superhero would she be if she didn't?

"Why?" she mumbles, reaching out to touch the gashes that ruin the once untouched skin of his wrist. She freezes when her leather-clad finger tips are almost brushing the cuts, watching him tense.

Oliver finally detaches his hand from the most recent cut; the tips of his long fingers are darkened with the scarlet of his blood.

Skylar knows she shouldn't be feeling so alarmed; she had seen much worse in her time, but something about these self-inflicted injuries on such a small, innocent boy doesn't settle right on her.

From the look his face, this concept wouldn't settle right on a lot of people.

"It's the only thing I can do," Oliver softly cries, wet tracks beginning to form down his cheeks. Skylar reaches up and grabs a roll of rough toilet paper, ripping off sloppy squares and pressing them to his wounds.

"How so?" she asked, looking for something to tie the bandage off with. Long, narrow scars carve there way up his forearm. Skylar doesn't resist it when her breath catches again. He has done it before? Did he ever plead for a person's secrecy like he did with her just moments ago? If so, had they felt a pang of sadness for Oliver as she does now?

"I love him, but I shouldn't. It's not right," Oliver continues to cry, curling up as she drops his arm, using a string she pulled off a mop to tie off to makeshift bandage.

Skylar frowns, momentarily confused. Him. Does she know who?

They sit together for a while, soaking in the silence. Somehow his falls onto her shoulder, and Skylar tenses, having never been this close emotionally, but doesn't have the heart to shrug him off. Her shoulder grows weight with the stain of his tears.

Then, the dots connect.

The sideways look, always lasting a little too long, the incessant faith...

"Is it Kaz?" Skylar asks, but she doesn't have to, because she knows she's right.

It takes a beat for her question to sink in - Oliver begins to cry slightly harder, his tears falling faster and faster.

She sits back and lets him cry.

**: : : :**

Almost two weeks later the incident in the supply closet remains between the two, but hardly a forgotten thing. Every time Oliver and Kaz come in on call, Oliver would manage to meet her eyes, sometimes in a greeting, sometimes to see if she broke her promise. Either way, Skylar would meet his, unable to erase the sad, subdued look in his eyes from that day.

"Hey, have you seen Oliver?" Kaz asks her, snapping her from her thought. Skylar holds ten pound weights in either hand, lifting them up in and down as she thought.

A bad feelings begins to spread through her stomach. "No, not since yesterday."

Kaz frowns at this. "Huh, he disappeared after we came in."

Skylar furrows her eyebrows. "That was over an hour ago."

"I know," Kaz agrees, a look of concern passing over his features. It isn't like Oliver to disappear like that.

Skylar turns her attention back to her weights, trying to will away the bad taste in her mouth. "I don't know, maybe Horace had to talk to him about a patient." The likeliness of Horace doing that and Oliver not bringing Kaz along, even when told not to, isn't much, and Kaz knows it too.

"Huh, maybe the normo finally decided to pack his bags," Allan snorts, having been eavesdropping on their conversation. "And good riddance, I say."

"Shut up!" Skylar barks, a little too sharply even to her.

Allan jumps back, startled back her tone, and eyes her oddly before stomping away.

"Anyway," Kaz says, bringing her attention back to the topic at hand, "Do you have any idea on where he could be?"

_What are you? A keep word or a hero?_

Skylar sets down her pair of weights, heading towards the door. "Come on, follow me."

A ring of doubt clouds her mind as Skylar leads Kaz down the same path of recovery rooms she walked through just weeks ago - it seemed like forever, the weight of the secret like a heavy anchor on her chest.

Kaz is persistent to know why she was leading him this way (the recovery room hardly sits in the top ten list of places Horace would allow Oliver and him to go), but she remains quiet, her back to him as she takes position up from.

A part of her is relieved to see that the same supply door is still ajar, that stupid dinky light spilling in from the inside.

"He's in there?" Kaz says, his tone heavy with doubt.

Skylar spins to meet his eye, her face grim. "Yup."

Kaz squints at her skeptically, walking forward to push the door open.

Even she gasps at what she sees, because she hadn't expected _this_.

"Oliver!" Kaz drops to his knees crawling to where his best friend lies, both wrists marring heavily gushing cuts, a small shard of sharp metal inches away from his hands. Carefully, he maneuvers the boy's head into his jean-clad lap, brushing his hair off his pale forehead.

"Kazzy?" Oliver mumbles, looking up blindly as his best friend peers down at him. "My head hurts."

Skylar stands in the doorway, frozen with shock, worry, and perhaps an inkling of fear as the rivers of blood spilling from him seem to grow into lakes of crimson. She knows that this is a private moment, that she should leave and let Kaz be his superhero, but she can't move.

"Don't worry, Ollie," Kaz whispers, "It's gonna be fine."

His fingers thread through his hair one last time before leaving to guide his head more comfortably in his lap. Kaz suddenly whips his torso around to face Skylar, who takes in his expression set with determination and a surreal grimness. "Go alert a doctor and tell them we're in need of a gurney in the end west wing; get a nurse to clear an operation room and recovery room after surgery ends."

Skylar's legs can't carry her away fast enough. Her stomach turns with the image of so much blood burning through her mind.

It's one thing to know that so much had come from a victory; a battle fought and won because the wounds were a since of pride, your own kind of trophy. It's another to know that the wounds are a reminder of a battle you lost - especially when that battle is with yourself.

A prickling feelings builds behind her eyes, a sting that won't go away no matter how much effort she puts into it.

She slams her eyes shut, a prickling feeling building behind them. Skylar pumps her arms faster, the road of the halls stretching out like eternity.

**: : : :**

Mighty Med's cafeteria food isn't the worst thing in the world. It actually isn't too bad; there is a lot not-too-bad things about this place. One of them currently lies unconscious in an operating room, pale from lack of blood, possibly already halfway to death.

Skylar considers this as she idly pokes her cubes of Jell-o sitting before her with a spork.

It took some time, but Skylar managed to pry Kaz away from the operating room doors; it wouldn't do him any good to stand in front of those doors that could possibly be closed for hours, torturing himself with the worst-case scenarios. Not that she isn't doing the same thing, but it wouldn't do them any good if they are both in that state of mind.

Skylar intently looks into her bouncy cubicles of fruity Jell-o. The squares are haphazardly falling over each other; they look like the color of blood.

She pokes at them again, watches the cube of blood-looking-but-tastes-like-strawberries Jell-o jiggle, and sighs.

The cafeteria is quiet, only a few of the ugly pale blue tables occupied with people and equally ugly food trays.

She notices how spread out the people are; she and Kaz are the only two at a same table. Maybe superheroes are touchy, unused to being so close to someone, especially another superhero. After all, why bother? The next day their death could be another story to sell to the comic book writers. Might as well save yourself the heartbreak and stay alone.

Rules like that apply to normos, too, Skylar tells herself distantly, her spacy gaze staring at her jiggling cubes without really seeing them. She wouldn't be like this is she didn't care so much. But how could she not? They are willing to help her divulge into the mysterious cure of whatever could bring her powers back; it's hard to stay detached in those set of conditions.

Then again, Allan doesn't have a problem with it.

Then again, Allan's a nub.

Man, her head hurts her with all this bouncing around. Who knew a person could literally think of a million things a minute?

"It's been too long."

Skylar snaps her head up, staring at Kaz. She's suddenly hyper-aware of how fast his foot is tapping against the floor.

"He'll be fine," she says, and instantly regrets it, because she knows there is more to say, but she lacks the ability of how to say it.

A stark silence hangs between them for a moment, before Kaz quietly speaks. "Was that the first time."

Skylar speaks around a forming lump in her throat. "No."

"How long ago?"

"I found out two weeks ago. He made me swear not to tell," she adds.

Kaz sits before her, calculating with his eyes heavily trained on the table.

"How crazy would it be if I told you love I was in love with him?" he asks softly, tears forming at the rim of his eyes. Skylar feels her heart lurch at this picture of sadness he forms, but also feels heavily relieved. At least their love doesn't have to unrequited.

"You should tell him," Skylar says tenderly. She wants to lean over, offer a shoulder, pat his hand, smooth his hair, but such comforting tactics don't fall on her well, but she knows her words enough because they didn't feel like an awkward stumble in her mouth anymore.

**: : : :**

Skylar falls asleep somewhere around midnight. Kaz would, but he somehow gained the energy to stay awake after a nurse in red and black Mighty Med scrubs wheels Oliver's figured into a recovery room.

The same nurse tells him that Oliver was now open to visitors; that he is stable and would be fine.

That happened almost twenty minutes ago.

Kaz feels his time ticking away before a doctor or nurse comes in to check on Oliver, effectively ending whatever alone time he would have with him. But somehow the energy he has to stay awake don't fuel the energy he has to face Oliver, his best friend, the boy he loves.

He's scared - scared of a lot of things. All the answers to his infinite amount of questions lies behind that door, but he can't stand to face them because he's so freaking scared of what answers he will get.

Answers mean reality.

Reality has been a foreign state so far away from the last five hours he spent worrying, that ruining the surreal image he surrounded himself in doesn't seem right.

But neither does being in a world where Oliver isn't at his side, real or not.

With a deep breath, he leaves Skylar's awkward curled up figure in the squeaky plastic blue waiting chairs he was sitting in; it won't do any good to wake her up. The day had quite a toll on her too - at least one of them deserves the rest.

Oliver is tiny in the big stark white bed, his body covered in thin sheets from the waist down.

Kaz sucks in a deep, shuddering breath as he tentatively sits in the cushioned chair bed his bed, simply looking him over.

There's bulky bandages on his wrists, covering the gashes that are now stitched together. Despite that, small splotches of raw red have bled through. A small noise comes out like a choke from Kaz's throat.

He can't wrap his head how this could have happened to someone like Oliver. The most stress he went through is his little adventures with Kaz and -

Oh, God. Kaz chokes on another sob. If this was all his fault, he doesn't know what he would do. Would Oliver even want him around after this? Did he blow it for himself? Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod.

A groan and rustle of sheets shocks him from his torturous thoughts. He watches with fractionally wider eyes than seconds before as Oliver's hand twitches underneath his fingertips.

"Kaz?" his voice is low and rusty as he speaks, but Kaz's heart squeezes with relief to hear it anyway. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, Ollie, it's me." Kaz wants to kick himself because he can hear his tears in his voice, feel them rushing down his cheeks.

Oliver pries his eyes open a little, looking at his best friend, suddenly aware of how tightly their hands are clutched together. The connections send tiny shivers up his arms; the rough pads of finger tips a pleasure against the pale skin of his knuckles.

"What's going on?" he asks. His throat feels too dry; why can't he keep his eyes open? Is the world always this bright? Someone should turn the lights down.

"You're in the hospital, bud," Kaz gently tries to explain, seeing the alarm sweep into his friend's eyes. "You should feel lucky; how many people can say they've been treated in a superhero hospital?"

Oliver opens his mouth, puzzled as to why he would need treatment, when remembrance hits him in a harsh wave.

The dim lights; Kaz and Skylar's voices; the squeaking of shoes; the stark white of a doctor's coat; flashing lights above him fleeing as he feel unconcious on the gurney.

He looks down, spying the blend of red and white on his wrist, tight and heavy on his slim wrist.

"You know now?" Oliver asks. His voice is small.

"Yeah, I do bud."

A few seconds pass where nothing happens; then Oliver starts to cry.

His tears slip silently down his face, dropping off his chin and onto the pale skin of his forearms and the whiteness of his bedsheets.

Oliver is dully amazed. He never cries when he cuts. Something about the slicing blade and the redness blossoming up on his skin makes him feel calm, in control even when he isn't.

Save the time Skylar discovered him, he never cries.

Certainly, he never cries in front of Kaz.

Kaz hasn't seen a lot of people cry, except for his mom and grandmother when his brother was sentenced to ten years in jail; but that was five years ago, and it hurts his head to remember that long.

They were loud cries - body shaking, snot dripping, blinding sobs that filled his ears for days, even after they ended.

Oliver doesn't cry like that. It wouldn't be fitting if he did cry like that, Kaz realizes. Because Oliver is a quiet person, one to sit and observe and think and to loudly draw such ugly attention to himself for something like crying doesn't fit his image.

Kaz rubs his hands together; reaches up to scratch the back of his head. The silence feels like an anchor on his chest, willing his heart to explode over and over again. He feels an alpititude of things - sadness for his best friend and love of his (short) life; anger at himself because he doesn't know what to do; frustration because never in his life did Oliver do anything to almost die; confusion because Oliver was the one to almost kill himself.

It seems almost natural when Kaz climbs into the small hospital bed next to him. Oliver's breath comes out in choppy puffs on the skin of his neck, their legs tangle together with the bed sheets. But it feels right when Oliver's wet face buries itself in Kaz's shoulder, and his arms wrap around his middle.

"I'm sorry," his words float up to Kaz in a muffled whisper.

He shouldn't be apologizing; Kaz should be, because he let Oliver get hurt, and nearly bleed to death in a cramped supply closet of a hospital that shouldn't even exist.

But Kaz can't choke the wods out, so he opts to bury his face in the top of Oliver's head and tease the bare skin of stomach as he pulls him closer.

The kiss seems natural too.

Kaz can't process when it happens or how, but Oliver's wet face meets his and their chapped pair of lips connect in a gesture that Kaz hopes the smaller boy takes for caring instead of sloppy.

They pull away minutes later, both panting and donning swollen lips.

Oliver's eyes shine as Kaz gently rolls off of him, trying not to crush him.

"I love you," he whispers, burying his face in his shoulder again.

Kaz feels his heart swell and begin to hammer madly against his ribcage. "I love you too."

**: : : :**

A month later, Skylars waits in the rec room for her friends to come in after school. She has been bored all day, and they are admittedly what kept this hospital interesting, although Mighty Med isn't that bad.

She sits on the couch and taps her foots, absently lifting weights and watching Mega Man do physical therpay with a nurse in blue Mighty Med scrubs.

"Oh, hey Skylar," a voice greets her, and she turns, smiling at Oliver.

"Hey, how's it going?"

He lights up at her question, smiling broadly. "Really, really good."

Kaz comes over from talking with Horace, a clipboard now in his grasp. "It's quite a day, today," he muses. Oliver wraps his arms around his waist and lays his chin on his shoulder, looking at their assignment for the day.

"Yeah, no kidding," he agrees, furrowing his eyebrows. Kaz's hands absently run themselves over Oliver's fingers locked on his stomach.

Skylar sits back and watches them with a smile.

Okay, normos aren't so bad; maybe she'll adjust to being one a little more.

* * *

**Ugh, this ending is really horrible, but whatever.**

**Hopefully you enjoy this, and it inspires you to write a Mighty Med fic yourself, so I am no longer the loner fan.**

**Please be gentle with your torches, this is my first slash fic, and I didn't want too much heaty-action going on when it's alreayd really angsty and stuff.**

**So, yeah, please review and tell what you thought, and if I should do another one.**

**(I'm going to anyway, but I thought it would be nice to ask.)**


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